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Researcher, Resource Tracking

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is a dynamic organization at the University of Washington. Its mission is to monitor global health conditions and health systems, as well as to evaluate interventions, initiatives, and reforms. A core research area for IHME is the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors enterprise (GBD). A systematic, scientific effort to quantify the comparative magnitude of health loss due to diseases, injuries, and risk factors by age, sex, and geography over time, the GBD is the largest and most comprehensive effort to date to measure epidemiological levels and trends worldwide. The GBD’s aim is to provide policymakers, donors, and researchers with the highest-quality quantitative evidence base to make decisions that achieve better health.

The Financial Resources for Health (FRH) team is a longstanding, core research team at IHME. The focus of this research team is to systematically, scientifically track resources spent on health and measure their impact. This research is both domestic and international and uses a wide variety of data types and statistical processes.

IHME has an exciting opportunity for a Researcher who will contribute to the development, implementation, and analysis of IHME’s FRH research. They will participate in several stages of analysis and production of research output, including analysis planning, project brainstorming, data management, statistical analysis, validation of results, visualization of results, and the development of written manuscripts, presentations, and reports. To do so, the individual must be able to identify and assess available relevant data, complete analyses, interpret output, and collaborate with the team. The Researcher will work with data from surveys, global databases, censuses, published literature, registries, and administrative records, among others. The Researcher will assess all available data and use or develop modeling tools to produce up-to-date and scientifically credible estimates and indicators used to evaluate and measure the impact of financial flows for health.

Researchers will be integrally involved in producing, critiquing, improving, and disseminating results. Researchers must develop an understanding of IHME’s financial resource-tracking methodologies and must already have a strong command of data manipulation and estimation techniques. Specifically, they must have experience working in global health settings and be proficient in a least one and ideally two of the following: Stata, R, Python, or SQL. The individual will work with data analysts, data specialists, projects officers, senior research leads, and faculty and take part in the intellectual exchange about how to improve upon the results, as well as the creation of papers and presentations that help share results with broader audiences. The individual will be expected to interact successfully with a wide range of stakeholders and to describe complex concepts and materials concisely. Overall, the Researcher will be a critical member of an agile, dynamic research team. This position is contingent on project funding availability.

Responsibilities:

Research command and analyses

Develop a core understanding of financial resource-tracking methodologies and their components.

Carry out quantitative analyses and participate in collaborative research projects.

Identify, review, and assess data sources in order to determine their relevance and utility for ongoing analyses. Sources include censuses, surveys, registries, administrative data, global databases, and academic literature. Become an expert in understanding key data sources and, in particular, variations in these data between and within countries.

Play an integral role in the statistical analyses including transforming and incorporating data, choosing and applying methods, identifying areas for improvement, and conveying results to diverse audiences.

Communicate with external collaborators in order to best understand the nature, key characteristics, and context of the data and engage in critiques of the analytic results.

For a given evaluation, become an expert in understanding the demographic, geographic, and social characteristics in a country or other evaluation setting that might generate disparities or be useful for comparisons.

Develop and maintain relationships with designated collaborators. Respond to and, as appropriate, integrate feedback from collaborators into the analyses. Work directly with collaborators to understand data to which they have access, and to in turn help them understand the methods being applied. Help to manage and orchestrate joint strategies for analysis.

Effectively communicate and work with other staff at all levels in order to achieve team goals for the analyses and related outputs.

Contribute to the development of ideas for new research projects.

Publication and dissemination

Write and lead publication of research findings in international peer-reviewed journals and other publications.

Present papers at national and international conferences to disseminate research findings.

Represent the research group at external meetings, seminars, and conferences.

General

Lead discussion in research meetings about results and analyses in order to vet, improve, and finalize results.

Document code and analytic approaches systematically so that analyses can be replicated by other team members.

Support project leaders in the development of new funding proposals.

Become a fully contributing member to the IHME team overall, lending help and support where needed, participating in mutual intellectual critique and development with colleagues, and acting as a mentor to more junior staff contributing to the research process.

Travel, as needed, to attend external meetings to represent the project’s findings, build capacity, and further strengthen research collaborations.

Work with members of the data team to develop data visualizations and tools, as needed, to further communicate the results of the evaluation projects.

Minimum qualifications:

Master’s in public health, epidemiology, statistics, biostatistics, or related field plus three years’ related experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Demonstrated interest in the research described.

Experience and demonstrated success in modeling using at least one and ideally two of the following programming languages: Stata, Python, R, and SQL.

Excellent analytical and quantitative skills.

Ability to undertake research projects with limited guidance.

Excellent communication skills, including track record of success in writing for publication, presenting research proposals and results, and representing research groups at meetings.

Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, team-oriented research environment with a focus on producing innovative, policy-relevant results.

A theoretical and practical understanding of quantitative analysis.

A flexible character and willingness to engage in all types and stages of academic quantitative research on global health.

Desired

PhD in public health, epidemiology, statistics, biostatistics, or related field.

A theoretical and practical understanding of infectious disease epidemiology.

Expertise in a second computer programming language or mathematical platform.